


Xander - Stuck in the Basement

by shadowkat67



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Essays, Gen, Literary References & Allusions, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-13
Updated: 2009-07-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:41:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22368871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowkat67/pseuds/shadowkat67
Summary: Let's talk about poor Xander, loyal friend, boy-next door, powerless side-kick, stuck in the basement.





	Xander - Stuck in the Basement

**Author's Note:**

> Written in March 2002. Goes up to approximately Hell's Bells.

Xander is the guy next door, the class clown, and the boy I had a crush on in high school.Unfortunately he only wanted the popular girl or the one he couldn't have. One of my favorite  
episodes - The Witch, shows Xander telling Willow that what he likes about her is she's just one of the guys. This is echoed by Buffy who tells Xander that what she likes about him is he's just one of the girls. (Great Karmic moment! And says quite a bit about the old Xander - he always wanted what he couldn't have when the best thing was right beneath his nose.) Xander also had the lowest self-esteem of just about any character on the show - he covered it with bravado, and quick retorts.Often making fun of himself before anyone else can. His banter with Cordelia in Season 1-3 was classic.

Xander is first introduced as the geeky guy on the skateboard. He is comic relief. He tries to help the hero, often falling flat on his face in the process. But he always comes through in the crunch. In Welcome to The Hellmouth, Xander, against everyone's advice, shows up in the tunnels to help Buffy rescue his friend Jesse. When Buffy asks if he at least brought a stake. He says - "well no, the part of my brain that remembers that was too busy reminding me of why I shouldn't be doing this. I did bring a flashlight." Buffy: Turn that off!." Xander somewhat sheepishly does. He does, however, help her out. If it weren't for him, she probably would have died. Buffy has never been able to see when she's in over her head. This act of heroism is repeated in countless episodes: Becoming Part II, The Freshman, Beer Bad, Primeval, What's My Line, etc…In The Freshman - Xander is the one who grabs the others to help her. He goes with her to the vamps lair. And Buffy does eventually acknowledge this in Checkpoint: "That boy has clocked more field time than any of you have." her speech to the Watcher Council.)

Xander's fears. We know he is afraid of being invisible: this is shown in Fear Itself and also mentioned in The Zeppo. His friends often take his presence for granted, treat him as a hanger-on or someone who needs to be protected. In NA - Willow tells Buffy that Xander has gone to look for the demon, Buffy's first reaction is concern: she doesn't believe he can handle a demon alone. (She's right of course, but that's beside the point.) Xander often accompanies Buffy when she tells him to stay behind. (Interesting ironic twist here instead of the dumb blond accompanying the hero into danger and getting hurt, we have the dopey guy following the heroine into danger. Not that Xander always gets hurt, sometimes he actually saves the day. And he really isn't that dopey; he just thinks he is.)

In the Replacement and The Zeppo we get to explore Xander's fear of inadequacy, that he is just a loser that everyone has to help. He can't possibly be the confident self-assured man that finds a cool apartment, gets a promotion at work, and deserves Anya's love. (See The Replacement). In the Zeppo - he feels ignored, pushed aside by the SG. Both episodes end well. Xander learns in the Zeppo that he can be a hero in his own right and does not need the SG. He can stand up for himself and defeat the bad guy. (Before he only fantasized about this - Halloween.) In The Replacement -he learns that he is a capable man and an insecure goofball. He is both and that is okay, because both are lovable in their own right.

What about the fears explored in Restless? Xander's biggest fear has not been invisibility or inadequacy, but becoming his father. How many people fear this? Isn't part of growing up - learning to separate oneself from one's family? To be your own man or woman? All along - Xander's family has been described as losers. Periodically characters refer to Xander's parents as embarrassing orsomething Xander wishes to avoid. In Amends - Cordelia states that Xander sleeps outside to get away from his loser parents' drunken battles. (Is Xander an only child? We don't appear to know. I assume so. It appears that this is something Xander, Willow and Buffy have in common up to Season 5 - all three are only children. (Please let me know if I missed a reference somewhere to siblings.) end of digression.) Later in Forever - Xander tells Willow he'll go see her mom to get reassurance, he really doesn't care if his parents live or die. Then Restless - Xander is stuck in the basement. Every door or path he tries leads him back into it. The only one he refuses to try is the one that leads upstairs to his parents. Have we ever seen him use this path? In Restless he even states: "That's not the way out." Maybe it is? At the end of Restless - it appears to be the only way out. And what he's afraid of is not the vampires that he first mentions when he hears someone at the door: " Hey I didn't order any vampires." It's his father - who eventually bursts through accusing Xander of making his mother cry. "Why won't you come upstairs - you mother won't stop crying, you have no heart, the line ends here!" His father smashes his fist into Xander's chest, becomes the first slayer and rips out Xander's heart.

But doesn't Xander eventually go upstairs? He gets the job, the apartment. He proposes to Anya. Even sets up the wedding. That is until the demon appears and shows him the nightmare. It's interesting that the nightmare is Xander's life with his parents. The drunken useless father, the nagging mother, and the violence. I felt like I was watching a scene from Bad Marriage 101. What does Xander say to Anya when he tells her he can't go through with it? _"It wasn't you that I was hating…?"_ What does Xander say to the demon after the nightmare has concluded: "Is Anya ok? What happened to Anya?" He is terrified of hurting her. He tells Anya the wedding is off while he is watching his father abuse his mother. For the first time, we actually get to meet Xander's parents and family. And they are worse than we ever expected. They are worse than the demons attending the wedding. Is it any wonder that Xander is terrified of becoming them? Heck - he even looks a bit like his father in this episode, the beefy physique.

Now let's talk about Xander and Buffy. Interesting relationship. What is Buffy to Xander? Or perhaps the better question is what has Buffy's presence done for Xander? Before Buffy, Xander was a geeky guy who rode a skateboard, cracked jokes, and flirted with popular girls he couldn't have. After Buffy, Xander went on missions, fought demons, saved the world, and found a purpose outside of his family home and cracking jokes. Buffy has given Xander a purpose, a way of addressing his inadequacy, a way of avoiding his parents' loser life. That is up until now. Now they are out of high school and Xander has responsibilities. He can no longer just fight the demon of the week. He has to work. Even without Buffy present, he discovered this - see Bargaining Part I & II - Xander got pummeled. So when he and the SG bring back Buffy - they are in effect leaving the demon hunting business. They do not go out on patrol with her anymore. Spike  
does. They aren't present when she's fighting the vamps in All The Way. Or in Wrecked. Or Dead Things. Or AYW. We rarely see X/A outside of the Magic Shop. Has Xander grown up then? Has  


Does Xander love Buffy? Yes, I think so. I think he wants to save her. He wants to be the hero but has learned that he can't. He may well have a brother's love for her, whether it be a big or small one, is unclear. He found this out in The Gift and to some degree in Becoming Part II. He can help her. But he can't save her. He can't make her choices for her or give her a job. The battle with the demons is essentially hers. He is a glorified brick-layer who can chip in from time to time. And he is no longer ashamed of that. (See the Gift - "And the glorified brick layer - gets one!") This must have been a tough realization for him. If it weren't for Anya - it may have destroyed him at some point, but by Afterlife and Life Serial - I got the feeling he'd accepted his new role in SG .Then we come to HB - this scene surprised me, it's the one that Anya says -" your back wouldn't have gone out if you hadn't exerted yourself trying to help Buffy. I told you not to. And it didn't help. You weren't able to save her." (Not exact but close.) His reaction? To pick up a frying pan and hit her. So clearly Xander has not completely come to terms with his inability to save Buffy. Or maybe he's just afraid that he hasn't - it was just a nightmare after all. Not real.

So where does this lead us? There has been very little spoilage on Xander's future. Xander has to realize that he does not have to become his father. He has to realize that Buffy, the SG, his father, even Anya do not define him. That he is a good man in his own right and can survive and live a good life on his own. In a way, Xander has to get back to who he was at the end of The Replacement and The Zeppo. He has to overcome his fears and not let his father or Buffy remove his heart. Otherwise he will be stuck in his father's basement, heartless, and alone.


End file.
